


~ Interlude ~

by Spiced_Wine



Series: Northern Lights [12]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien, fusion - Fandom, multifandom
Genre: Conversation, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, M/M, Mention of M/M, Talk of Parallel Universes, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-30 00:34:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18304610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiced_Wine/pseuds/Spiced_Wine
Summary: Maglor and Vanimórë speak of Sören and other matters during a flight to Iceland





	~ Interlude ~

**Author's Note:**

  * For [verhalen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/verhalen/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Chains Of Eternity](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18070109) by [verhalen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/verhalen/pseuds/verhalen). 



> This is set before the beginning of ‘Chains of Eternity’

  
  


  
  


**~ Interlude ~**

 

  
The choppy swells of the North Atlantic surged below them as the plane flew North.  
  
Maglor’s eyes held a definite animus as if, every moment, he was on the verge of pulling out a concealed knife and stabbing Vanimórë through the heart.  
‘I thought you were dead,’ he hissed. ‘I _hoped_ you were dead.’  
  
There was greater privacy and space on the BA First Class and few people to overhear. During the flight from Alaska, Maglor had contented himself with a silent rage that would have been icy had he not been Fëanor’s son.  
  
‘Would it help you to know,’ Vanimórë said lazily. ‘that I am dead?’ Before Maglor could verbally annihilate him,  
he continued: ‘I assume you have heard of the Multiverse theory? Of parallel universes?’  
  
‘Of course,’ Maglor replied stiffly.  
  
‘In this reality I died in the War of the Ring,’ Vanimórë told him. ‘And I am imprisoned in the Void. In another — the one I come from — I did not. Other things happened.’ He took a sip of champagne.  
  
‘So you are a different version of Vanimórë?’ Maglor asked almost sneeringly.  
  
‘Some thing are the same. You and I still have the same history for one.’  
  
Maglor cast up his eyes, long fingers digging into the leather beneath them.  
  
‘Is that,’ he asked, the bitterness simmering through, ‘what lead you to Sören?’  
  
‘Yes, let us speak of Sören,’ Vanimórë agreed. ‘I did not have sex with him to spite you.’ He set the glass down. ‘You spent almost five years with him, and yet you did not see — or you saw and did not recognise it. He is an artist, yes? There is power in his work. He is not exactly like anyone else.’  
  
‘Perhaps you could stop riddling and get to the point?’  
  
‘It is not for me to tell you. I am just giving you something to think about.’  
  
‘But why did you get involved with him at all?’  
  
‘I picked him up at a gay club.’ Abruptly he sat up, reached across the partition and clamped a hand on Maglor’s knee. ‘Don’t say it, just do not. He spent a hellish year after you left him. What was he going to do? Sit at home?’  
  
Maglor met his eyes, burning up. Though he loved to see this Fëanorion resurgence, Vanimórë’s fingers tightened.

‘Take you hand away.’  
  
He did so, eyes still warning. A flight was no place to resolve this.  
‘He was trying to forget you.’  
  
‘I didn’t expect or think he would be celibate,’ Maglor said through his teeth. ‘But with _you_ —‘  
  
‘You must admit I know how to look after the walking wounded.’  
  
‘Your method of _nursing_ leaves something to be desired!’  
  
‘Does it really?’ He allowed the smile to curve his mouth. ‘You seemed to respond rather well to it.’ Then he laughed. ‘Don’t glare murder at me, beauty. The end justified the means.’  
  
‘You have no idea — do you? how much I want to kill you.’  
  
‘Not with other people on the plane, surely?’ he teased. ‘You would never get away with it. Shall we call a truce?’  
  
‘There is no truce between us, ever.’ The silver eyes burned into his, brilliant as mercury between those feathery lashes. But he seemed to make an effort to relax, looking straight ahead. ‘Merely a cessation of hostilities. Tell me about Sören.’  
  
‘I made a suggestion he should leave Reykjavik, leave Iceland for a time, that is all.’  
  
‘After having him.’  
  
‘I did not use him. I did not use _thee._ ’ Vanimórë lowered his voice. ‘It was never about using thee. Or him.’  
  
‘Of course not, you high-handed bastard.’  
  
‘One does not _use_ people like you, or Sören. At least I don’t.’ Vanimórë remembered the nights after that first aggressive seduction, the incredible, explosive sex and, by the set of his jaw, the sudden movement of his hands, Maglor was likewise recalling that he had not been unwilling, had indeed initiated it like a man starving. And he had been starving: for intimacy, for care, for — although neither of them had known it then — the closeness of kin, that Fëanorion blood that burned through all laws, all societal mores.  
  
He had to leave Maglor alone during the day in those high chambers of Barad-dûr where the black iron bars fenced the fuming red sunsets. Sauron had left orders before giving himself into the hands of Ar-Pharazôn, and Vanimórë would see them carried out until he himself left for Númenor. When the shadows lengthened, he would retire to his rooms and order supper. Often, supper was an afterthought; it was not food they were hungry for. And Maglor spoke not  
one word, had not needed to; his body was eloquent.  
  
_So beautiful._ Last, lost legend of a doomed family, the brightest, the most tragic. Vanimórë could no more have let him die than he could have killed a baby. No wonder, he had thought, that Melkor had been obsessed with Fëanor.  
  
‘What?’  
  
‘Merely thinking.’  
  
Maglor presented his faultless profile. ‘Do you even know...have you ever been in love?’  
  
‘In love. What is that exactly? I do wonder. But yes, several times. And jealous too. But that was not long after my father, or rather his physical form, was destroyed, and I was not...sensible for quite a long time.’ He waited through a beat of fulminating silence. ‘Where I come from, monogamy among Elves is unnatural, something forced on them in Valinor. _I_ was never monogamous, nor did I expect it in others, but I was jealous of someone you and your father took, who was dear to me because I saw him as the purity I had never possessed. But of course he was entitled to sleep with who he wanted to, that was never an issue. I did not take him, not for a long time, for fear I would besmirch him.’ He shrugged. ‘And so, yes, I was jealous. I know what it feels like. More often, for me, it adds a...spice.’  
  
‘Who was it?’ Maglor asked curiously.  
  
‘Someone called Elgalad.’  
  
‘Something about him touches you on the raw.’  
  
‘Being lied to always touches me on the raw, but that is between him and me — and Eru.’  
  
‘ _Eru_?’ Maglor almost laughed. ‘You make...interesting enemies, I will give you that.’  
  
Vanimorë was thoughtful. ‘I am not sure that he is. Yet.’

An incredulous glance. ‘Have you ever been in love with a,’ he lowered his voice, ‘a Mortal?’  
  
‘In my world, no. But fond of, cared for, not wanted to see succumb to mortality? Yes.’  
  
‘Then you cannot understand,’ Maglor told him flatly. ‘Sören was ill, walking pneumonia, and I saw then, a glimpse of how it would be, as he became older, more frail.’  
  
‘So you walked away. Would it interest you to know that Sören is with a man much older than he? A man who can expect to live perhaps twenty more years? And yet he lives each day as it comes. Do you think death is easier for Mortals?’  
  
‘Then why in the Hells are we going to Iceland? I assume he is with the man because he is happy in that relationship?’  
  
‘Very. Are you not pleased for him? The man is intelligent, personable, understanding, mature.’  
  
‘He sounds perfect,’ Maglor said through his teeth. ‘And so I ask you again, why? To show me my...immaturity in leaving him, my inability to handle grief.’  
  
Vanimorë looked at him. ‘I know it is not immaturity. And I know you have lived with grief immeasurable.’ A beat of deep silence as their eyes met. ‘But what I have to explain is best explained to Sören — and Dooku, primarily, with yourself in attendance, perhaps. It will depend on them. You know,’ he murmured with the air of someone imparting a great secret, ‘one can be in love with more than one person?’  
  
A faint flush. ‘I know, yes. Not that I believe,’ a recovery of anger, ‘that you have ever loved _anyone_ or you would not be so glib.’  
  
‘Then you would be wrong. I have a certain...taste,’ he smiled, ‘for beauty.’  
  
Maglor said, stiffly: ‘Merely desiring someone is not love.’  
  
‘Is it not?’ Vanimórë said amusedly ‘Thank you for clearing that up. But then, how can you know what motivates me, beauty?’  
  
Silver eyes narrowed. ‘Yes, so what _does_ motivate you?’  
  
‘’An inherent dislike of unfairness.’  
  
‘You can do nothing about that, you are not Eru.’  
  
‘I am not? No, I think I would be rather more...proactive, were I Eru.’ He hid a smile.  
  
‘Stop fencing with me.’ Maglor swung to face him. ‘How did you know about Sören?’  
  
Vanimórë regarded him for a time. ‘Very well. The Timeless Halls, Maglor. You have not been there as yet, not in this reality, but in another, you have. It is the axis of space-time. The axle-tree of all the universes. And there is a Portal, known to very few, that shows all other realities, daughter-universes, parallel worlds, other dimensions. From there one can see — everything. Every possibility there is, every world you can imagine, and more that you cannot. I try not to look,’ he added wryly, ‘as it is too easy to become involved. But sometimes it is irresistible.’  
  
Maglor stared. ‘You _are_ mad. And if this thing exists, how do _you_ have access to it?’  
  
‘Let us pretend for the moment, that it is truth,’ he said patiently. ‘One can go through the portal easily, but leaving the world one has chosen — such as this — requires use of ancient places on those worlds, standing stones, tumuli, islands, the hollows in great trees, crossroads, where the shore meets the sea. Liminal places. There are such legends on this Earth: That the Tuatha de Danaan vanished into the mounds of Ireland, and became known as the _Sidhe_. Of course they did not go underground, but into the _otherworld_ , another reality. Some people can feel these lesser portals. Iceland itself is such a place in its own right. When I wish to exit this Earth, I use those places.’  
  
Maglor watched him, emotions flashing and vanishing to leave the beautiful lines of his face blank as a carving. He picked up his champagne and drank it back in one swallow.  
‘The Timeless Halls...Is that where you went — when you died?’  
  
‘I did not die, as such. In that reality. I...ascended.’  
  
‘Ascended,’ Maglor enunciated the word. ‘To godhood?’  
  
‘And so did you.’ he watched for the question that Maglor did not dare to ask but finally, he did, forcing it: ‘My family?’ And he waited with the flinch that was imminent in his eyes.  
‘They are there.’  
  
Emotion poured from Maglor like a wave of silent thunder, like the great rogue wave that appears out of a calm sea. He closed those incredible eyes. Vanimórë did not say more, offering silent comfort out of his own pain.  
  
‘I do not know if that makes it better or worse,’ Maglor murmured eventually. ‘Because, here—‘

‘The future is not written, Makalaurë, and nothing is ended. Nothing is ever ended.’ For good or ill. Maglor’s eyes opened, a dreadful hope burning in the back of them, that unquenched and unquenchable fire that had kept him alive for so long. ‘And so, the Portal. I looked in it and I saw you. I saw you here, with Sören and well...He is not _usual._ So I came. And here we are.’  
  
‘Here we are,’ Maglor said dry as dust. ‘I do not want to crash into Sören’s life and turn it all on its head. I did feel how much I hurt him. I had to close off that link.’  
  
Vanimórë gave him a look. ‘You truly have lived too long in this world, among Mortals and all their cramping rules and traditions. As I said: It is possible to love more than one person.’ He opened a leather case and began to flick through it.  
  
‘So you see everything from the Timeless Halls,’ Maglor mocked. ‘And you have to make notes?’  
  
‘In fact I do at times. And I prefer not to use the technology here much, save for business matters. But when I come through...I have to leave a great deal of myself behind. It is like trying to squeeze a tangerine through a keyhole. I have learned that the best thing to do is tell someone who is already on the world I am to visit, so they can remind me. Only three people are aware of the Portal.’ He glanced up. ‘And one of them has agreed to help me, when not otherwise engaged elsewhere.’  
  
‘And who is he—she?’  
  
‘In another world he goes by the name of _Aelios_. His name in Valarin is _Nemrúshkeraz._ In Sindarin, Coldagnir. He chose to take on the persona of a Balrog, to fight against Melkor. Eru hid what he truly was, but Melkor was...what he was and Coldagnir fell into darkness for a very long time.’  
  
‘A Balrog?’ Maglor’s eyes burned into molten silver.  
  
‘Gothmog raped him, as did Melkor and Lungorthin. When he entered Utumno he was very beautiful.’ Vanimórë met the accusation steadily. ‘He regained his true self long after. And no, he is not a Balrog, have I not said? The Balrogs were like tongues of fire or solar flares exploding from the face of the sun. Coldagnir was the sun itself.’  
  
‘Here, the myth is that Arien is the Maia who dwells in the sun,’ Maglor said after a thoughtful pause.  
  
‘Arien was a Maia _imprisoned_ in the sun, most of the Maia were chained into slavery by the Valar or fled. Coldagnir _was_ the Sun.’  
  
‘I saw what the Balrogs did,’ Maglor hissed. ‘I killed one myself. I _saw_ them. You know what they were. And you think I could become friends with it?’  
  
‘No, not if you don’t wish to, but he has paid. Believe me. Beings of power walk even on this world, my dear Maglor. Most of them glamour themselves — do they not?— but they are here, and Earth is not alone in the Universe. And Sören...let us say there is far more to him that meets the eyes, and what meets the eye is lovely.’  
  
‘Yes, I understand very well that having lovers means nothing to you—‘  
  
‘Once? No, they did not. For thousands of years when serving my father I took casual lovers when and where I could. Camp followers, prostitutes — Moon Women, we called them then. I could not have _relationships;_ my situation made that impossible. I wanted to learn about sex, to learn how to please and be pleasured. I was so determined that my slavery would not... _influence_ me.’ He flickered a small smile. ‘You were the bright star in the darkness, beauty. But I did become more discriminating, and for a long time I have been _very_ choosy indeed. I think we are quite similar in that respect. But Sören...who could resist? Those curls. Those eyes. That mouth. That body. And added to that, his very nature. It was...difficult to leave him.’ He mimed a kiss at Maglor’s fury. ‘We’ll be coming into Reykjavik soon,’ he added. ‘This will be a wild ride.’  
  
Maglor looked out at the blue sky, frowning.  
  
‘I was not,’ Vanimórë said. ‘talking about the landing.’  
  


  
  


**OooOooO**

 

  



End file.
